European Commission Sends Statement of Objections to Google Over Abusive Practices in Online Advertising Technology

On June 14, 2023, the European Commission ("the Commission") published its preliminary view that Google has violated EU antitrust regulations by distorting competition in the advertising technology industry (“AdTech”).

The Commission has raised concerns about Google's preferential treatment of its own online display advertising technology services (“ATS”), which has had a negative impact on competing providers of ATS, advertisers, and online publishers.

In its preliminary findings, the Commission determines that Google holds a dominant position in the markets across the European Economic Area. Specifically, identifies Google's service 'DFP' as dominant in the market for publisher ad servers, and its services 'Google Ads' and 'DV360' as dominant in the market for programmatic ad buying tools for the open web.

The Commission preliminarily finds that Google abused its dominant positions by:

• By showing preference towards its own ad exchange AdX in the ad selection auction conducted through its dominant publisher ad server DFP, the Commission finds that Google engaged in practices such as providing advance information to AdX about the value of competing bids that AdX had to surpass in order to secure the auction.
• The Commission finds that Google was giving preference to AdX by intentionally avoiding other ad exchanges and predominantly placing bids on AdX, thereby positioning it as the most desirable ad Exchange.

You can access the full text of the press release here.

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Zumbul Attorneys-at-Law

info@zumbul.av.tr